Here We Come A-Wassailing

The gnawing question remains, however: Are we wassailing yet? Sure, the carol asks explicitly that wassailers go door to door begging for booze, moldy cheese and spare change, and we've vowed to solicit at least two of those, but will we then be able to confidently assert that we've authentically wassailed? More to the point, could we have devised a pretext any flimsier for drinking in the country and avoiding the barbarity of the shopping malls?

Our next stop, Barboursville Vineyards, eschews the down-home approach in favor of a vast and elegant tasting room laden with multiple stations and dominated by a blazing double-sided fireplace. There was no requirement that we try five whites, eight reds and a ros¿ before staggering over to the dessert wines, but . . .

"Do you have waffle?" asks Mom when we reach the end of the line.

What?

"Waffle. Wassail."

Our sommelier, a precise, bespectacled man who had surprised us by being a heavy pour, pleads ignorance.

"It's one of those British things like figgy pudding," he says. "Don't ask me what's in it."

I venture: But it's made from apple cider, right?

"Like I said, don't ask me."

Mom chuckles faintly before trying the Rosato, a sweet ros¿ with a hint of strawberries. A fine thing, we agree, but definitely no wassail.

A raucous atmosphere greets us at Horton Cellars, a stone's throw away in Gordonsville. Later, still more tasting behind us, neither Mom nor I could remember what the place had looked like, and so I have relied on our designated driver for the following description:

It was a turreted Tudor castle with white wines on the first floor, reds on the second. Big crowd. You went on a tour of the wine barrels in the basement and drank new chardonnay from a siphon.